ABSTRACT
Situated at the northeast corner of China's southwest region (including Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Tibet), Sichuan has a total area of 570,000 square kilometers, which is approximately 6.9 percent of the national total. In terms of area, it is the fifth largest provincial-level administrative unit in the People's Republic of China and the largest among Han Chinese provinces. 1 Surrounded by mountains and hills, the eastern part is a basin, known as the Red Basin by the outside world. With a total area of 160,000 square kilometers, the basin is one of the largest in China. The central part of the basin is the Chengdu Plain, one of the richest places in ancient China. From the surrounding mountains, the rivers of Yalong, Dadu, Ming, Tuo, Fu, and Jialing run from north to south and the Wu River from south to north. These rivers, plus many smaller ones, join the Yangtze River which runs through the southern part of the basin. The upper reach of the Yangtze, the Jinsha River, separates Sichuan from Tibet. The western part of Sichuan is a highland. Mountains in this area are above 3,000 meters above sea level. The northern part of the highland is an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with an average of 3,500 meters to 4,500 meters in elevation. The southern part of the highland is part of China's Hengduan Mountains running from south Sichuan down to Yunnan. The Hengduan Mountains is an area where the land is separated by deep gorges and rapid rivers running from north to south. 2 This topography of Sichuan presents three basic features: first, it is difficult to access from outside, "the road to Shu is as difficult as to heaven"; second, thanks to the Yangtze and other rivers, it is relatively easy for Sichuanese to travel to the outside world; third, once in Sichuan, especially in the basin area, internal transportation is easy and convenient. "In a time when inter-regional exchanges only amounted to a low percentage of gross national product, this external isolation," according to Adshead, "was less significant than the excellent internal communications in determining the life and character of Szechwan." 3 Since the beginning of this century, communication with the outside world has been dramatically improved. Compared with China's coastal regions, however, the topography of Sichuan was one of the major obstacles for local modernization.
